Five good things

No spotting since yesterday.

Being asked out on a date by Ray.

Watching him try to save an injured pigeon.

Sleeping all night long without chemical intervention and without nightmares.

Feeling as if I want to paint.



I think I might try this every week until I don't have to look for the good things.



What are your good things?

I feel

Frustrated, irritated, unsure, quiet, sad, angry, sadhappy, tired, sleepless, tearless, sad, empty, bereft, loved, loved and loved.

• Ray has been awfully ill since friday with something flu-like and horrible. While he's been tucked up in bed shivering and sweating, and when I haven't been waiting on him or mopping his brow, I've been pottering around or sitting on the sofa alone with my thoughts and without my babies. Empty. 

• He's feeling a lot better today. Whoop.

• We're hoping to go away for a couple of days soon. We've been hoping to go away for a couple of days for months. Now we need to

• I put some paint on a canvas last week for the first time in three years. It felt good. It's not finished and I don't know if it will be finished. I need some new paints.

• I'd like to go on a spending spree but there's not enough money.  Either spending or eating but spending would be better.

• I'm still spotting off and on two and a half weeks later and fortunately there's no sign of infection. I know it's normal but I. Am. So. Sick. of. it.

• I've been quiet here, reading a little but not commenting very much. You have my support even if I don't tell you. All of you. Always.

• I'm still searching for the brightness.

Fragments

The world seems faded some days. 

As if the colour leached out of the universe and went away with Little Poppet on that cloud rainbow.

I've been sick. 

The huge dose of antibiotics given during/after surgery wreaked havoc on my insides. 

I've been a darkly serious concentrated ball of pain.

It's getting better now.

I'm trying, and often succeed in finding the brightness again.
What else is there to do?

It's in my very own Ray of sunshine.

It's in a purring kitteh.

It's in your kind words.

It's out there in our overgrown, marvellously unkempt, clashing colours garden. 

In my heart however, I think I might have to paint it back, one colour at a time.

There are two kittehs in there too. Did you spot them?

Goodbye

Do you remember this post?

It was right about the time that Little Poppet left us.

It wasn't a message of hope.

I think it was a goodbye.

And that's what I'm choosing to believe.

07/07/07

The love of my life,
My best friend,
The father of my children.

Three years seems such a short time to fit in so much love, laughter, fun, adventure, hope, grief, healing...
And two dead babies.
Two babies in three years.

Three years ago Ray invited me on a boat trip to Dartmouth. We spent eleven hours together and had trouble ending the day. A week later he moved in. A week after that we were engaged.


Three years later and we end each day with a kiss, a "sweet dreams" and an "I love you". We have only spent 5 nights apart in three years and not by choice. When I was in hospital we ended our days with text messages of "I love you, I miss you." and middle-of-the-night messages of "Are you awake? I feel sad. I miss you".

People tell us how good we are together.


I never dreamed I could be so happy, or share so much sadness.

All curled up

Tiny, just tiny, with us for a moment and gone.

All I can think of doing is crying and writing.

Thank you for listening, thank you for bearing witness to our Little Poppet's small life.

PS if anyone is adept at photoshopping and has a little time to spare, would you have a go at removing the measuring line that goes through Little Poppet? It looks as if s/he was crossed out. :o(
(I have a larger image I could email)

Procedures

Wednesday

The ultrasound tech began the ultrasound, squirted gel and poked around and then decided I needed to empty my bladder so she could do an internal scan. I knew but I couldn't say anything. She prepared dildo cam and began scanning and measuring and I knew. I couldn't see a heartbeat. I knew. Ray said he knew too. And then the soft hand on my arm and the words, "Barbara I'm so sorry..."

I wailed, I think. I remember saying, "No" over and over and over again. I remember Ray grabbing me and his tears spilling into my hair. I remember we both swore a lot.

We sat in the bad news room for a while.

Both Ray and I felt oddly embarrassed walking through the waiting room and out of the maternity unit. Ray called it "the walk of shame".


I called my Mum. And her heart broke. Again.


Thursday

Numb.

Ray went for bread and milk and spent his birthday money on a new bead for my Pandora bracelet. I cried.


Friday

The surgery went well.

We checked into the Day Surgery Unit at 1pm.

There was a woman we knew vaguely in the waiting area with her son (6ish) who was being circumcised (it's not done routinely in the UK) and she asked me what I was having done. "It's rather personal" (i.e. mind your own business you nosey cow).

Ms P the consultant did the honours and decided to try a hysteroscopy as well to have a look around.

I woke up crying.

And in pain. Copious amounts of pain killers topped of with oral morphine and I was wheeled into the ward. "Would you like a cup of tea? Some toast?" No I want Ray.

Every time I moved I could feel the blood coming out. I hate that.

Ray hugged me and I whispered, "baby gone".

I tried a cup of tea and instantly I had painful trapped wind and burped in an unladylike fashion for a while.

Ms P popped in to see us. All normal. One tiny polyp, nowhere near the baby but removed along with one tiny little scrap of hope. No blame to throw at fibroids. Lots of "bloody water" (saline) sloshed around my insides. No obvious reasons. Just one of those things. She's going to refer me for a second opinion on the fibroids.

Lovely kind nurses.

I got up, went to the toilet, got dressed and we left at 6pm.


Saturday

I woke up stiff and sore and achy and crying. At about 3am.

Ray brought me flowers from the garden.

I cried.

Thank you

I am absolutely overwhelmed by your kind messages of love and support. You are wonderful.

I am having an ERPC this afternoon: Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception. Horrid acronym, horrid horrid.

I couldn't bear to wait to miscarriage "naturally".  I am just so afraid of bleeding.

I still feel pregnant. They gave us two scan pictures of Little Poppet all curled up.


I don't know what happens next.